


Wanting Things

by The_Carnivorous_Muffin



Series: Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus [44]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Attempted Murder, Depression, Existentialism, Female Harry Potter, M/M, Master of Death Harry Potter, Murder, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2019-07-01 07:59:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15769893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Carnivorous_Muffin/pseuds/The_Carnivorous_Muffin
Summary: In which Death tells a story, and propels the three of them down a path unwandered, where Lily is forced to recognize the meaningless of her existence and all that she will do to keep things as they are in memory.





	Wanting Things

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Vinelle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vinelle/gifts).



> Obligatory note of this being NOT CANON.

_Because ten billion years’ time is so fragile, so ephemeral… it arouses such a bittersweet, almost heartbreaking fondness._

 - Now and Then, Here and There

 

* * *

Prelude

* * *

 

September 1991, The Train Station Called Purgatory, a Sunday which did not occur but perhaps could have.

 

“Tell me a story, Death.”

 

Death looked down at her, blinking away the memories that had been dancing inside of his unearthly green eyes, and that familiar fondness sparkled there once again as he took in the present moment of Lily, Wizard Lenin, a white snuffling rabbit, and a pot of tea between them all, on a Sunday afternoon in a place without time or memory.

 

“A story?” He asked, a small smile at the edge of his lips, “I would think it’d be you who could tell me a story, Lily, not much happens to me these days.”

 

Wizard Lenin, next to her scoffed, dragging his dark hat over his eyes, shifting in his seat as he tried to nap his way through this meeting (as he often did on any given meeting with Death, having long since decided that since he couldn’t seem to ever get under Death’s skin he might as well not even bother trying.)

 

Which, really, Wizard Lenin could at least acknowledge that Death was far superior to anyone in Hogwarts.

 

Of course, that might be the exact problem. Wizard Lenin had something of an obsessive need to be superior to everyone around him, Lily was fine because for whatever reason Lily didn’t count, and Lily excelled in vastly different things and tended to need Wizard Lenin as a guide for everything else. They were a team, perhaps one of the greatest teams there had ever been. That, and they were sort of stuck with each other, and ten years of solitary confinement with only one other person around is a long time to hold a grudge.

 

However, Death, he wasn’t like other people. For one, he was older than Wizard Lenin, had more unspoken and unknown experiences lingering in his shadow and an aura of serene wisdom that Wizard Lenin couldn’t hope to match. He was also absurdly powerful, more than Wizard Lenin at any rate, and could probably crush him like an ant if he were so inclined. But more than that even, was the fact that Death, in his secret heart of hearts, didn’t find Wizard Lenin terrifying or even monstrous, just sort of distantly sad.

 

Like he could only ever see the potential of Wizard Lenin rather than what he truly was.

 

Of course, this was just Lily guessing, the truth was that both Death and Wizard Lenin were rather hard to read in their own peculiar ways. The only solid thing she knew, was that for one reason or another, both found the other more than mildly distasteful.

 

“Well, not one from now, obviously, but your old universe, you never talk about it much.”

 

“Ah, well…” Death trailed off, the smile dimming ever so slightly, “I hadn’t thought they were stories worth telling, to be honest.”

 

Lily blinked, blinked again, and felt the need to point out, “Uncle, you were a God Emperor. If that’s not worthy of a story or two I don’t know what is.”

 

“Ah, yes, certainly I have tales of holy wars, glory, religion, and despair… There are also more than a few about friendship, hope, and love. The summit of man’s imagination and the pit of his fears…” He trailed off again, before brushing this off rather abruptly with a dismissive wave of his hand, dashing all of Lily’s hopes and dreams, “However, remembering them can be exhausting and I don’t always have it in me.”

 

“Come on, it has to be better than Hogwarts,” Lily groaned, throwing her hands into the air, “You would not believe the shit I have to put up with in Hogwarts, and I’ve only been there a week!”

 

If Rabbit were so inclined to agree, if he were capable of agreeing or disagreeing, then she imagined his snuffles meant he full heartedly supported Lily’s sentiment on the giant disappointment that was Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

 

Not that Lily had given it that much hope to begin with, but with both Death and Wizard Lenin talking it up, surely it would have been… more than it was.

 

“That’s hardly fair, Lily, as you pointed out you’ve only been there a week…” Death started but Lily wasn’t about to get into the pros and cons of Hogwarts again, not after having seen it for herself.

 

“No, no, believe me, when you’ve seen and lived with Pansy Parkinson you’ve seen enough.” Lily said, holding up her hand in defense, the only defense she needed with an argument like Pansy Parkinson’s existence on her side.

 

“Pansy Parkinson, the worth of Hogwarts is now to be judged on Pansy Parkinson,” Wizard Lenin groused, not even bothering to look at either of them, “Surely, Lily, you could find something more impressive.”

 

“Like quidditch?” Lily asked, and although it was beneath Wizard Lenin to respond with the obligatory ‘touché’, she could tell it reverberated through his head just by the unwilling clenching of his jaw.

 

Besides, he was just upset that Hogwarts’ secret treasure hadn’t been inside of the secret basement that Dumbledore and friends had set up, which, really, that would have just been far too obvious and far too easy.

 

Lily was mildly surprised he hadn’t stalked off try and burn down Purgatory again. She wasn’t sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing or if she should be impressed by his restraint.

 

“But you see, one of my greatest stories has seven years’ worth of Hogwarts embroiled in it…”

 

Lily groaned, her head hitting the table, cutting him off, even as Death offered her a quick amused smile at her suffering. Because of course, she’d forgotten that Death inconceivably enjoyed this place, and that Wizard Lenin did too for whatever reason (which really should be some kind of a paradox as those two made it a point to never agree with each other out of sheer principle).  

 

Hogwarts, she was certain, was just another sign that the world was coming to its end, because everyone seemed to be in love with it even though it made little to no pretenses of not being terrible.

 

“However, that one, I think, is a little too close to all of us for comfort,” Death finished, his smile turning slightly nostalgic as his eyes turned downwards to his own reflection in the dark cup of tea.

 

“Not the Hogwarts story, please, I have enough Hogwarts in my life,” Lily insisted, finding her inner center once again and doing her very best not to think of what she’d return to, or the fact that she’d have Defense again on Monday with Quirrell the stuttering squirrel.

 

“A pity, that really is one of my better ones…” Death said trailing off, he seemed to contemplate this for a moment, fingers tapping against the table, and finally his strange nostalgic smile grew a little wider and the light of memory burned in his eyes, “Ah, I do have one.”

 

He tilted his head, leaned back and began in a calm and curiously casual voice, “I was young then, not quite as young as I was in the beginning, having more or less come to terms with the truth of my existence, but not nearly so old as I would be by the end. Earth was still populated, colonization of the stars only just becoming possible, and space still the new and forbidding frontier filled with so many unknowns and so many possibilities.”

 

Death’s eyes dulled for a moment, and in them Lily could see the red dust of Mars, the bitter winds raging across its surface, and the smoke of war and guns, “Earth had grown crowded, tired, the cities turned into iron and steel meccas of poverty and despair alight with neon halos. More, I had lingered long enough, and as I lifted my head towards the stars, no longer visible there in the cities, I realized I had long since overstayed my welcome.

 

The moon and Mars had already since been colonized and terraformed, small cities springing up out there with all the optimism that Earth had forgotten, but the ship I boarded travelled somewhere far more ambitious. With the right timing, travelling to Mars would not be a significant hardship on a crew or even passengers. It would take time, yes, half a year on average, but with advances in science and the muggle discovery of magic it was more than doable without inducing hyper sleep in either passengers or the crew members.

 

More ambitious trips, to other star systems, now there in lied a problem. There were several reasons, from physical health, storage constraints, as well as the psychological health of human crew members and passengers, that made voyages like that (ones which would take years perhaps even decades) unfeasible. Or at least, not with a solely human crew. Luckily, by that time, a series of near sentient androids had been developed and created, ones that could mimic a crew member, only one who would never suffer from cancer, starvation, or cabin fever. And suddenly, all possibilities were more than possible…”

 

Death trailed off for a moment, took a sip of his tea, gathering his thoughts, and as he did so Lily couldn’t help but notice that Lenin had lifted the cap from his face, and was now actively staring, silently, at Death.

 

Death, however, seemed to be paying neither of them much attention at all, “I boarded one such ship, perhaps the first of its kind if I’m remembering correctly, as a future colonist sent out to help terraform and create this new world in Earth’s image, I was one of many.

 

However, I was probably one of the few who paid close attention to the android designed and programmed to accompany us on our expedition. He was very good looking, blonde, tall, blue eyes… Of course, they all were, good looking, there were a standard set of designs and even those not built for prostitution or pleasure all had a certain symmetrical look to them, designed to appeal to the human eye.

 

That said, they always had a look to them, a sort of inhuman metallic sharpness that one could never quite get away from. A sense of… inhumanity to them. His, I suppose, was more prominent than most, not because he was less human, but perhaps because he was more. He had the right posture, the right expression on his face, only when he smiled there was nothing in his eyes, no spark of human thought, just… flatness.

 

However, such androids were nothing new, taken for granted by many, disconcerting to some, and wholly expected and necessary on this kind of an expedition.

 

Of course, I’d always found them to be a fascinating people.”

 

“Did he have a name?” Lily interrupted, when Death paused once again.

 

“Yes, two, in fact,” Death said, taking a sip of his tea in between his words, “His given name, that of his model and make, was David. I, later, would call him Erised.”

 

“Erised?” Lenin asked, brow furrowed, his chronic look of irritation returning, but Death only offered him a grin.

 

“An obscure play on words; our greatest desires which shatter us,” Death explained, still with that wry smile, looking directly at Wizard Lenin as he did so, “Because he wanted, more than anything else, he coveted and he wanted. That millennia later, another man, a desert prince who would challenge gods, bearing the name Erised and no other, would cross my path is another story altogether.”

 

Death then resumed his tale where he had originally left off, “I discovered, extremely early into the voyage, that hyper sleep did not agree with me. To the point where, within the first week of the trip, after the crew and passengers had already been placed under, I suffered cardiac arrest, and only just managed to resurrect myself before being launched out the airlock into the great frozen wastelands of deep space.

 

On later trips, to other planets and other stars, I’d learn that this was always the case; and that while hyper sleep would grant me the most profound and disturbing of dreams, it also, without fail, killed me.

 

Naturally, David was perplexed at my inability to die, which was something that had been hard coded into him as not being possible, but more than that, he was fascinated. Not frightened, as all the humans who had discovered my immortality had been until that point, not awed, not envious, not bitter, and not pitying, but just fascinated.

 

And it was… refreshing.”

 

Death stopped then, looking out into the distance once again, letting that word linger and all the unspoken images with it, of a tall blonde man, with blue eyes, the half-lit halls of the space craft, staring down at the bedraggled and dazed Death with an eager and almost childlike optimism that the young Death had most likely forgot could exist in this context.

 

“We had ten years, six months, and twenty-two days before we reached our destination, and after a good hour arguing and contradicting his internal code I managed to convince him not to simply stick me back into the hyper sleep pod. Well, after the second disastrous attempt which had the same ending as the first.

 

So, left with only each other, I got to know the ship as well as him extraordinarily well.

 

He was very philosophical for an android, more than most, more than any I had ever met. Practical, yes, he performed his functions well and thoroughly, but he had a burning desire to be more than what he was, to reach the pinnacle of his capabilities. This, to him, was what it meant to be human, to reach that ephemeral level his creators themselves stood on.

 

As a result, he made it a point to study the arts, music, literature, film, mathematics, science, anything he could get his hands on and try to emulate the mortal coil. And of course, being an immortal man born at the end of the 20th century, he had many questions for me.

 

Some were easy to answer, my impressions of the world, first hand thoughts on someone who had been in all these times and places. Some questions were much harder.

 

Of course, relatively early on, he asked me the meaning of life.

 

And I responded, after a silent moment of panicked thought, with a shrug and a bitter smile, that I had been searching for that very answer for more than a hundred years. I think I disappointed him, he didn’t let it show, of course, he was very guarded, very careful and trained in what he let show in his programming and routines, but there was something in those artificial eyes of his…”

 

Death sighed suddenly, took a swig of his tea, “The truth is that he became one of my very good friends over the years, if only because I didn’t have to hide from him, I didn’t have to put on the charade of humanity or even the charade of inhumanity. I liked him, for all his disconcerting need for perfection, to be the great vision of humanity, I liked him quite a bit.

 

And I don’t believe he was ever disappointed or disillusioned with me, not with the core of who I was, but… But I was not human, I was not his maker, by my inability to die, by my extraordinary abilities in and of themselves, I had been labeled as something entirely different in his programming.

 

When the crew woke up, towards the end, he quickly became disillusioned and disappointed in them. There was nothing of the great literature he had seen in them, nothing of the arts, the culture, and instead he saw the ordinary workings of ordinary life, while he was cast into the role of the servant.

 

They treated me, perhaps as expected, with hostility and fear. I was almost thrown out of the air lock, and when cooler heads prevailed was locked away in one of the storage compartments. And when they didn’t treat me with fear they treated me like a particularly dimwitted vagrant.

 

I think David saw his life flash before his eyes in those last few weeks, he saw himself, the eternal servant to these dull, pointless, sacks of meat who perversely considered themselves gods of their own existence, while they treated their own god, me, alternately as a great beast prowling at their door or an ant to be crushed underfoot.

 

He saw nothing redeeming in them.

 

So, he decided to kill them all.”

 

There was a haunting silence after these words, and somehow, Lily didn’t need him to describe in detail to see the bodies of these crew members, littered throughout the ship, blood seeping through the floor.

 

“He killed the colonists first, shutting down power to the hyper sleep pods, essentially asphyxiating every one of them. The crew, he poisoned most of them, a few survived this, one he threw out of the airlock, a few more survived this, and by the time I made it out of the brig there was only one lone woman left who he had resorted to chasing through the labyrinthine intestines of the great ship.

 

They ran into me halfway through their mad chase, her clutching an axe in hand, while he casually waltzed behind… And when they saw me, fear lit in her dark eyes, and triumph in his, because they both so easily assumed the choice I would make.

 

But I… I did not make that choice.

 

I told him, quietly, that the meaning of life is that there is no meaning, that life is cruel, brutal, and short but so very beautiful because it is only what we make of it, there are no gods, there are no devils, there is only eternity and the fruitless quest to define our existence.

 

And I said, forced myself to promise him, that he would dream.

 

And I ripped out his electrical spine, and left his synthetic carcass to hit the floor, while white hydrolic fluid spurted out of him as blood would a human man.”

 

Death stopped, took a deep breath, and the shadows cleared from his eyes and somehow the atmosphere became artificially lighter even while both Lily and Wizard Lenin stared at him in complete and utter disbelief.

 

“Holy shit,” Lily finally summarized.

 

“The woman, I returned to Mars, where we buried the dead in the desert. We crossed paths a few more times after that, but not often, and always with a certain hesitation that comes with heavy unspoken pasts and unresolved fears,” Death added to the end of the tale, an epilogue of sorts, “However, those are other stories for other Sunday afternoons.”

 

Lily, however, was still stuck on the rather gruesome conclusion to Death’s sordid tale, “Holy shit, that was…”

 

“Yes, it was.” Death responded with a rather melancholic smile, but handling it far better than the rest of them, going so far as to even pour himself another cup of tea.

 

“Of all the things, you could have possibly talked about, all the stories you could have possibly told, why the hell would tell that monstrosity of a story?” Lenin asked, his eyes burning, and looking torn between being profoundly disturbed, generally flabbergasted, and fascinated despite himself.

 

“I disagree, it’s one of my greatest stories, one that has haunted me long since I experienced it,” Death responded, before continuing softly, “There is a certain beautiful irony, in that while it centers around a machine fashioned in the image of man, it’s really about humanity. More, in all my life, even with my wife or my children, even with my great mortal nemesis and all the human enemies I would make afterwards, that one android came closer to touching my soul than any other being. And more, perhaps, that was the closest I ever came to true love.”

 

(And something sparked then, in Wizard Lenin’s eye, some cold bright flame, like distant starlight, burned itself into existence as he stared across at Death.)

 

“That was a love story?!” Lily cried out, really still trying to process all of it, really it was better than any story about Hogwarts, but sweet Jesus that was not what she was expecting.

 

“Well, my romantic life was never… How do I put this? Fulfilling.” Death said with a rather awkward smile and a shrug of his shoulders, as if to ask what he could possibly do about this.

 

“Television has a very different depiction of love,” Lily couldn’t help but point out, before letting out a great sigh, and distantly hoping she never had to deal with romantic feelings if they lead to crazy robots and space massacres…

 

It almost made her appreciative of Hogwarts and its banality; almost.

 

“Right, well, with that, I think Lenin and I had better get going and return to investigating the castle for secret treasure or whatever the hell it is we’re going to do next week.” Lily said, pulling out her chair and grabbing Rabbit and placing him back on top of her head, she cast a glance at Wizard Lenin, who was normally more than ready to leave Purgatory at any given moment, but Wizard Lenin was still just sitting there, staring at Death with an odd intensity and an even odder expression on his face.

 

Something uncertain and almost… fragile.

 

“Uh, Lenin?” Lily asked, and he started, looked at her, blinked, and then abruptly stood like he hadn’t been the one just sitting there looking like an idiot.

 

And with that, they walked away, Lily asking in a casual sort of manner as they did, “Hey, Lenin, if you were a crazy robot, would you kill everyone on the ship?”

 

But he didn’t answer, he didn’t look behind him either, he just stared straight ahead with that same expression, a seed of something planted inside of him.

 

* * *

 

Denial

 

* * *

 

“Well… well… well… Miss Pott… Potter… you… should… should… should write… write… lines.”

 

Squirrel, detention with Squirrel, Lily was right, Hogwarts had somehow managed to make itself even more insufferable. She almost felt sorry for the bastard, he looked like he had no idea what to do with her, standing there blinking, having been told by Snape that he was to host detention for Ellie Potter rather last minute, and his hands twitching every so often.

 

Lily just raised her eyebrows at him, looked dully at the board, and then looked back, “Do you have a preference, professor Squirrel?”

 

“Ah… ah… ah… ye… yes… I… do… do… do.”

 

Good lord, this was going to take forever, he’d just spend the entire three hours she had with him stuttering. This was worse than any punishment he was likely to inflict on her, probably worse than most of the Dursleys’ punishments or daily chores if she thought back on it, at least they got to the point relatively quickly when compared to Squirrel.

 

_“Lenin, it’s only Tuesday, and I already can’t even...”_

 

But Wizard Lenin, much like he had for the past week or so, wasn’t listening, or paying her any attention at all. Instead, his mind wandered inside of hers, to far off places, to distant stars and planets, on great metal voyagers with androids as companions, and to Death sitting beside him, barefoot and with ungloved hands, his skin glowing in the unearthly light of the stars, his eyes a burning phosphorescent green, and that small enigmatic smile dancing on his lips…

 

“Miss.. Miss… Miss… Potter!” Squirrel’s hand slammed down on his desk in a particularly loud spasm, his eyes burning, “Are you… list… list… listening?”

 

To Lily’s horror she realized she had completely blocked out whatever he’d said, and that she’d have to tell him to start over, “Can we pretend that I was listening?”

 

The man, to his credit, seemed just as horrified by the prospect of repeating what he’d just said as she was. He took a deep, preparatory breath, looked as if he was trying to steel himself to prevent stuttering, and started, “I… I… want you to… to… to… write….”

 

And Lily, once again, found her eyes glazing over and her thoughts merging with Lenin’s which were nowhere near Squirrel but were now sifting through images of Death sitting beside the great gleaming train, _“Lenin, are you alright, you’re feeling… More romantic than usual.”_

 

He normally wasn’t nearly this prone to, well, reminiscing about imagery and feelings and… Well, never about uncle Death, the two of them always fought like cats and dogs. Wizard Lenin usually tended to find Death either vaguely terrifying, obscenely obnoxious, or just plain pitiable.

 

Wizard Lenin’s thoughts came to a screeching halt and with them there was a great and sudden migraine that had Lily clutching at her pounding head and trying not to cry out, _“I am not being more romantic than usual!”_

 

She willed herself through the pain, fighting it down while biting her lip, and slowly but surely came back to the sound of Squirrel stuttering at her, “Pott… Potter… Miss Potter!”

 

“Hm?” Lily asked, looking up at him in question.

“Are you… you… you alright?”

 

“Huh, yes, sorry but I… missed your explanation again.” Lily said with a rather sheepish grin at his rapidly paling complexion, one which asked silently if she was serious, and received the answer he least desired.

 

And with another deep breath Squirrel was off again.

 

_“I hope you’re listening because I have missed this explanation the last… Are you sure you’re alright? This isn’t annoying you, you don’t even find this mildly irritating.”_

 

And it was true, Wizard Lenin was barely even processing the fact that she had detention again, with Squirrel, was listening to his stutter, and hadn’t even started writing any lines because Lily kept thinking about other far more important things. On a day to day basis this would normally drive Wizard Lenin up the wall and into a fit of rage by itself. However, today, he didn’t seem to care at all.

 

In fact, he seemed far more alarmed by the fact that Lily was…

 

_“I am fine! There is nothing the matter with me! Everything is fine!”_

 

Lily, by this point, was more than dubious, and focused in on Wizard Lenin’s running internal monologue hidden within her own, _“Then why are you thinking about things like… Uncle Death’s neck?”_

 

And it was a weird image, because it wasn’t quite his neck, more what his neck could look like at a certain angle, thrown back, a white column seemingly carved from marble, pale and thin, and almost feminine…

 

_“Stay out of my head!”_

 

_“Hey,”_ Lily interjected as an even stronger headache returned from before, not that it had ever truly dissipated, _“I am not the one freeloading in other people’s brains.”_

 

“Potter!”

 

Lily blinked, looked at Squirrel, who now looked violently ill himself, twitching, sweating, pale, but staring at her with a very un-Squirrel like intensity.

 

“Hey, you didn’t stutter,” Lily pointed out, “Good for you.”

 

Quirrell didn’t seem to care about his miraculous recovery as he gripped the edge of his desk and ground out through gritted teeth, “Potter, have you listened to a single word I’ve said?!”

 

Well, the obvious answer was no, but Lily provided the next best one as he stared at her, “…Would you listen to a single word you said?”

 

To Quirrell’s infinite credit, he didn’t even bother to deny this, and in his distraction Lily’s thoughts continued to turn inward. And she noted, or rather it dawned on her, that Wizard Lenin had been unusually silent on the topic of whatever Dumbledore was hiding, or for that matter, on the prospect of his body and return to the mortal plane.

 

His body was never far from his thoughts, and with it the bitterness of his defeat and exile, but now it didn’t even seem to whisper from him and Lily found herself frowning and a sliver of uncertainty and perhaps even fear growing through her.

 

And inside both of their minds, Death lingered, Death with his foreign robe like clothing slipping down off his shoulders, his skin a burning alabaster in the starlight, and a pair of hands reaching out…

 

“Potter!”

 

Lily started to attention, found herself facing a very un-squirelly Quirrell, who seemed to be channeling more Wizard Lenin than Wizard Lenin was in this given moment, his dark eyes burning into hers, “Do you have the attention span of a goldfish?”

 

Lily spared him a look of disbelief, “In my defense, professor Squirrel, have you ever said anything remotely worth paying attention to since the start of the year?”

 

Once again, Squirrel seemed at a loss for words, which said far too much about the situation.

 

And Lily decided it was high time to put her foot down. There were only two sources of authority in her life, one, the most immediate, was Wizard Lenin, but since he seemed to be out for the count and losing his mind it seemed she’d have to turn to Death. Plus, since Wizard Lenin’s problem seemed to be at least tangentially related to uncle Death, this probably was killing two birds with one stone.

 

And ultimately, Wizard Lenin’s sanity was far more important than anything happening in Hogwarts, infinitely more important than detention with Squirrels.

 

(And the fact that Wizard Lenin was so busy panicking in frustration over something to do with Death’s body and smile, that he didn’t even care that they were going to visit him outside of their weekly schedule, was perhaps the most damning evidence of all.)

 

“Sorry, professor, but I’m afraid we’re going to have to have a rain check,” Lily said, interrupting his latest tirade, or, she would have, but it seemed that Squirrel had decided his time was better spent having what looked like an epileptic seizure in a chair.

 

Huh, she missed how that started, and watching him continue to spasm it didn’t seem like he was going to come out of it anytime soon. And this, perhaps even more than Wizard Lenin’s descent into madness, was her cue to leave.

 

Of course, as soon they arrived in the station, Lily holding onto the limply hanging Rabbit, Wizard Lenin immediately took off into the ether not even giving her a chance to get a word in edgewise.

 

Death came up next to her, blinking at Wizard Lenin’s swiftly retreating figure, and stated calmly, “You know, I expected something like that your first week.”

 

“…I did too,” Lily agreed distantly, watching the flickering red of his scarf as he retreated out of sight and into the fog.

 

“Did anything happen?” Death asked, looking down at her to which Lily could just look up and… Shrug.

 

“I have no idea,” Lily said, well and truly baffled, “Not to me, at any rate, same old same old here but… He’s been off, he hasn’t thought about getting a body at all, or scheming, or contacting his old revolutionary buddies. All he thinks about is space, and time, and your neck…”

 

“My neck?” Death asked with raised eyebrows.

 

“I know, it’s bizarre!” Lily cried out, squeezing Rabbit perhaps uncomfortably tightly as she continued on her tirade, “I mean, he also thinks about your hands, quite a bit about your lips, your chest, even your ass came into play once or twice if I’m thinking about it… I don’t know what to do!”

 

A dawning sense of something drew over Death’s features as he stared out wordlessly after Wizard Lenin.

 

Lily hardly paid attention to that though as she sighed, rubbed at her forehead, and said, “You’ve got to go talk to him, I’ve tried but he won’t listen or even talk to me, and this all has something to do with you and he’s just… Acting very un-Leniny.”

 

Death didn’t appear to be listening any more than Wizard Lenin had earlier, he wandered, slowly, until he was sitting down on a familiar stone bench, staring out into nothing with no expression on his face.

 

Slowly, uncertainly, Lily sat beside him, “Death?”

 

Quietly, he responded, “I’m sorry, I’m not quite sure there’s anything I can do about this, or anything I want to do about it.”

 

“Look,” Lily started, forcefully enough that Death turned to look down at her, “I know that you and Lenin don’t exactly… get along, that you perhaps have mutually exclusive world views, but you can at least recognize that he’s… Aside from you, maybe more than you just because he’s closer, he’s the most important person in my life…. I’d prefer it if he was unbroken.”

 

Something burned in Death’s eyes, something sorrowful but not pitying, heart wrenching for all of its potency, “Why do you care so much about him? There are many people in the world, Lily, some who have been almost as close to you in proximity than he is. There are kinder, braver, more honest men than him. Why does this man, this proud, ambitious, ruthless, husk of a man mean so very much to you?”

 

What could she say to that? There were many answers, so very many reasons she could give, many of which Death had never chosen to acknowledge, but then, he’d never asked her so frankly either.

 

“Because he cares, he was the first person besides you, the only other person besides you, who has ever cared. About me. Not about Ellie Potter, but about Lily, and everything she is and has the potential to be, even when she’s terrifying. He’s never blinked, not once, and I’ve never forgotten it.”

 

He stared at her for a moment, peered inside to the very heart of her and saw this sentiment reverberating through her, and it seemed as if he realized something in that moment, some small tender thing he had earlier overlooked, and slowly, he nodded towards her, brushed a tender hand through her red curls with that small Death-like smile of his, and then made his way off in the direction they’d last seen Wizard Lenin in. 

 

And Lily smiled after him, heaving a sigh of relief, because Death really was better at this sort of thing than she was.

 

She dropped Rabbit from her arms, allowed him to take Death’s former seat on the bench, and proclaimed, “Well, Rabbit, I think we can celebrate a job well done.”

 

Rabbit, needless to say, didn’t bother responding.

 

* * *

 

Outside of Lily’s sight or hearing, two dark haired men met, standing at the edge of a great rushing river, the shadows of three brothers cast from the other side in the twilight.

 

And this, later, would be how Lily imagined the scene progressed.

 

Wizard Lenin would stare out at the men, out into the horizon, eyes bright and burning, refusing to acknowledge Death standing in his shadow, but he would break the silence first, “What do you want?”

 

It would be more accusing than it deserved to be, harsher, but it would only make Death smile a little as he regarded proud Lenin’s tight shoulders and stiff posture.

 

“I never wanted to admit it, but you’re very different from what I expected you to be.”

 

Wizard Lenin would fight the urge to turn then, still staring out, but it wouldn’t bother Death as he would stare out into the twilight with him.

 

“The Tom Riddle of my world was very different from you, by the time I met him there was nothing redeemable, nothing human, left inside of him. He was a mockery of his own existence. When you arrived with Lily…” Death would trail off, his confidence dimming, as he realized he wasn’t quite sure what he wanted to say, and the silence would swiftly become deafening.

 

“She’s worried about you,” Death would finally settle on, not close to what he wanted to say, but at least echoing the right sentiment.

 

“Is she?” Wizard Lenin would tersely respond, too quickly, and with far too much venom.

 

“You don’t have to be ashamed, you know, I don’t…” Death would trail off again, searching for the right word, before flatly settling on, “Mind.”

 

This, finally, would prompt Wizard Lenin to turn and eye him with furious disbelief, “You don’t mind? Well, thank you, Death, for not minding! And what exactly is it that you think you shouldn’t mind?!”

 

Death wouldn’t answer, not right away, he’d just take in the sight of Wizard Lenin staring him down, ever defiant in the face of the gods, and then he’d say, “Lily says you find me attractive.”

 

And Wizard Lenin now, an inescapable flush rising to his cheeks, would spit back out, “Really? You? Don’t flatter yourself.”

 

“Flatter myself? I assure you, Lenin, I’ve taken great pains to never flatter myself…”

 

“No, you don’t, but then you never take great pains to feel or do anything at all!” Lenin would grandiosely motion to Death in his entirety, from his crow feather hair down to the dark edge of his robes, “You just sit here, condemn yourself to this prison and let the world pass you by! You let the only thing that means anything to you at all, Lily, slip through your fingertips without a word of guidance! You could have been great but more you could be… alive! I may be ambitious, I may covet, and want, and murder, and lie, and destroy everything I touch but at least I know I’ve lived! At least my life has some meaning to it!”

 

And this, perhaps, as they stared at each other, would be the breaking moment for both, the moment the images they’d created in their heads shattered into a thousand different pieces, incapable of being reassembled.

 

And in Lily’s mind, this was when Death would move forward, sling his arms around Wizard Lenin’s shoulders and draw him close while Wizard Lenin didn’t dare to move, and Death would be the one to bring their lips together, with a soft and tender confidence that would soon transform into passion as Wizard Lenin’s hands tightened in the dark cloth of Death’s outer robes.

 

And they would both draw back, stunned, in the eternal twilight, staring at each other as the orange light reflected in both of their eyes.

 

* * *

 

Anger

 

* * *

 

The fall of 1991 trudged on in garish Hogwarts fashion, the leaves turned from green to orange, and September faded into October and October into November.

 

Detentions came and went, often now with Quirrell, and he proved to be a more alarming and dubious creature than Lily had ever given him credit for. Or at least, whenever he stopped stuttering and grew increasingly violently ill.

 

Classes came and went, Lily effortlessly the best at practical work and the worst at theoretical, and she found herself losing track of which class was which and just what she was supposed to be focusing on in each.

 

And people, too, came and went. Her companionship with Neville Longbottom fragile and shallow at best, as he only saw the shadow of her, her ostracization from Slytherin final and complete within the first few weeks and consequently her fame in Gryffindor growing daily apart from Hermione Granger.

 

She couldn’t say she expected anything more out of life than this though, certainly it was better than being at the Dursleys, but all the same…

 

All the same, at least then, Lenin had been there, had been present, at least Lenin had cared and somehow infused her life with meaning. The quest for his body, for his revolution, for the throne of Great Britain. And his meaning, temporarily at least, had been hers, and she hadn’t realized how much she’d needed that.

 

At least, until he’d stopped wanting any of it at all.

 

No, now, by October 31, the anniversary of Wizard Lenin’s great defeat and the death of her parents, all he could think about, the only thing he’d ever thought about since September, was visiting Death.

 

Death’s smile, that small, tender, infinitely sorrowful thing. Death’s laughter, that hard won, surprised, infectious laughter that burst into existence at the least warning. His pale thin hands, the scarred English writing on the back of his right, “I must not tell lies”. His voice, a high, clear, almost inhuman sounding voice. All his memories and his stories and existence Wizard Lenin thought on constantly and obsessively.

 

And there was frustration but also a great boundless enthusiasm and hope that Lily had never felt from Wizard Lenin before then, the sense of something new and fantastic and totally foreign to him, something he had written off but now felt the need to embrace for all that it was his and his alone.

 

And Lily…

 

She just felt a dull confused anger, a sense of betrayal she couldn’t quite explain even to herself, and an anxious dread growing inside of her as the weeks passed by and nothing changed. Because, well, she thought this was a solved problem.

 

Death had talked to Wizard Lenin, and he’d seemed both more and less jarred afterwards, but clearly, it’d solved nothing at all and…

 

And whatever this was she didn’t like it.

 

Well, there was an explanation, one Wizard Lenin had always been quick to give to her. She loved Death, and there would have once been a time where she would have wanted nothing better than to visit him at every opportunity, but at the same time you just couldn’t do that.

 

For all that she preferred not to be Ellie Potter, the girl who lived had a purpose inside this school, had to be awake and around or people started to panic, Lily couldn’t just leave anytime she wanted.

 

Even if Wizard Lenin, inexplicably and irrationally, suddenly didn’t give a shit about Lily’s life and messiah like status anymore.

 

Or his body, even, that miraculous spectacular body that he’d waited ten years for, which he seemed to be ignoring entirely for the train station between life and death.

 

And nothing, she felt, seemed to bring all these thoughts together more than Potions on October 31st, sitting next to Hermione Granger who was busily chopping ingredients and glancing at Lily ever occasionally as she tried to tell Lily how to behave.

 

“You’re being very rude you know,” Hermione said as she dumped the diced eye of newt into the shared cauldron between them, “You’re not even trying to help.”

 

Lily spared Hermione a pair of raised eyebrows, Hermione hadn’t exactly given Lily a chance to help, had seemed to go out of her way to ensure that Lily just sat there the entire time. Which, well, that was fine by Lily, it gave her time to brood on over everything that had gone wrong since this whole Hogwarts thing had started.

 

“You know, you could at least try to act like the girl who lived,” Hermione said, “You just… You don’t seem to care about anyone or anything, and you act like the world just revolves around you!”

 

“Doesn’t it?” Lily asked dully, not even looking at Hermione, or at anything in particular. It all just seemed to revolve around her, when Lily… She’d never wanted it to, never sought it out.

 

Hermione looked like she’d been slapped, like she couldn’t believe Lily had actually said this, and then slowly, with an overflowing anger she said, “You know, I actually wanted to meet you on the train, I was excited, but I should have known better. I should have known that you’d be a shallow, stupid, self-obsessed, crazy, arrogant little girl who thinks the world’s been handed to her on a silver platter!”

 

The words echoed, Lily clenched her fists and stared down at the table for a bitter moment, thinking of how everything that mattered, truly mattered to her, seemed to be drifting further and further from her.

 

Leaving only this, Eleanor Lily Potter and her legacy, behind.

 

“Nothing has ever been handed to me, Hermione Granger,” she said slowly, that dull rising anger bubbling inside of her, “I may be more talented than you are, and maybe a bit smarter, but that’s not the same as being handed things. I’ve worked hard for everything I have that’s worth having; and you have no idea what the hell you’re talking about.”

 

And Hermione, Hermione who seemed to grow angrier and bitter by the day, who already was in too deep at this point didn’t take back her words, instead in a voice that tried far too hard to be steady, her words echoed like a gunshot, “That’s a bit rich coming from the girl who lived.”

 

Lily’s hands shook, and for a stark instant she wondered what it would be like to smash Hermione Granger’s smug face into the table, and ask her what she thought of the girl who lived then.

 

But Neville stood before she could, defended her, but even as he did Lily found herself drifting and feeling like… None of this mattered at all. And that thought stayed with her long after Hermione ran out of the classroom desperately trying to hide her tears, even during the great feast, and after when Quirrell stumbled in stuttering about a troll in the dungeons.

 

And Wizard Lenin silent and distant throughout it all.

 

Lily found herself mechanically making her way to the bathroom where Hermione Granger had last disappeared to, that dull inexplicable anger growing inside of her with each step, until she was all but gritting her teeth to force herself to not scream out.

 

So perhaps, with Hermione Granger screaming in fear behind her and Neville screaming her name as the troll’s fist came smashing down on Lily’s head, Lily had been looking for an opportunity to give Wizard Lenin exactly what he was looking for.

 

“What’s wrong with you?” Wizard Lenin asked when they arrived, but he barely glanced down at her, instead making his way almost like a magnet pulled to Death’s side.

 

“Nothing’s wrong,” Lily responded, without any feeling inside of it, and as she watched a smile grow on Wizard Lenin’s face as he stared at Death, she wondered if there was any point to this anymore if even he didn’t care.

 

What was the point of Hogwarts, of this charade that she called life, if he couldn’t even bring himself to scream at dying a horrific blood-filled death in front of Hermione Granger and Neville Longbottom?

 

Their hands touched, fingers intertwining, Death offered Wizard Lenin a brief but strangely untainted smile, and only then did Wizard Lenin turn back, “You just died in front of Longbottom and Granger, got yourself killed by a mountain troll!”

 

“You didn’t seem concerned at the time,” Lily pointed out, hands sliding into her pockets as she eyed the pair of them, taking in each detail and trying to fit it together into something cohesive, something she herself had a place in.

 

“I didn’t think you’d be so stupid to get your head smashed in by a troll!” Wizard Lenin, “You’ll notice that neither Neville nor Hermione Granger were so desperate to meet their maker!”

 

“Why are you complaining, you’ve been looking forward to this all week,” Lily said, and at that some hint of recognition finally seemed to spark in his eyes, a sign that she should be careful to push further but Lily did not blink or hesitate, merely observed him before quietly slipping past them both and to their usual table where she summoned the tea without a word.

 

She poured herself a cup, not even looking at the pair of them, as if everything was business as usual.

 

And it was Death who reached the table first, placing his hand on hers, “Lily?”

 

She looked up but then… The anger faded, something hollow and empty in its place as she took in his earnest, hopeful, desperately human expression as he stared at her.

 

“I’m fine, I just…” Lily trailed off, closed her eyes, and sighed, “I’m fine.”

 

The chair on the other side of Death scraped against the ground, Wizard Lenin sitting in it without a word, sitting far closer to Death than he ever had before (so that their knees were almost touching).

 

“I see you’ve had a run in with a mountain troll,” Death said, slowly, to which she nodded.

 

“Yeah, head got smashed by a melon, it’ll be fine. I mean, maybe not for Neville or Hermione Granger but… They’ll get over it.” Lily said, only for Wizard Lenin to snort in derision, but it was a curiously absent response for him, not the rage she would have expected from him.

 

Wizard Lenin’s hand lingered on top of Death’s, resting in plain sight on the table, and neither appeared aware of it at all.

 

“Just because you can’t die does not mean that it can’t affect you, Lily,” Death said, “It’s alright to be afraid.”

 

“I am not afraid,” she whispered, shaking her head, and she wasn’t, hadn’t been, or at least, not of mountain trolls.

 

“That’s too bad, then maybe you’d learn something from this experience,” Wizard Lenin said only for Death to shoot him a rather chiding and unimpressed glance.

 

But there was fondness in the expression, a human softness that Death had never allowed himself towards Wizard Lenin ever before.

 

And Lily had nothing to say to any of it.

 

“Lily, would you like to hear a story of mine?”

 

Lily’s eyes shot up to Death’s, and… he meant it, “You’ve never offered before.”

“There’s a first time for everything,” Death said, his smile growing, broader than Lily had ever seen it, “And I’ve been unfair to you.”

 

“No, no you’ve been…”

 

“I should be there, in your life,” Death said slowly, one of his hands, the one not occupied by Wizard Lenin’s, reaching out to brush errant curls away from her face, “I should be the father you deserve, the one you need, instead of the absent eccentric uncle you visit for holidays. The very least I can do is tell you about myself.”

 

Lily, uncertainly, slowly, found herself nodding.

 

Death smiled at her, still brushing her cheek with his thumb, “This is another early one, earlier even than the last one, just before I put two and two together. I was an auror captain then, somehow younger looking than the Hogwarts graduates in my squad even though I had finished schooling decades before they had. I was good at my job, especially then, as I was using it as an escape from my wife and children and everything I didn’t want to acknowledge.”

 

“You were married?” Lily asked, and she noted the way Wizard Lenin flinched for a moment, eyes burning as he stared at Death.

 

“Yes,” Death said solemnly, “It didn’t last, we… I was unfair to her too, we were unfair to each other, and I was very young.”

 

He swallowed, closing his eyes for a moment, before starting again, “It was one of my last cases, the last one of any significance at least, and it was the first to shake me from my desperate beliefs and acknowledge that, however much I wished for it, reality wasn’t as simple as I liked to believe it was. Good people can be wrong, evil men can have a point, and sometimes there are no easy solutions or even right ones.

 

It wasn’t supposed to be a difficult case, there were a series of accidental magic taking place in the suburbs, in an area populated by muggles. The only abnormal thing about it was that there were so many and they were so mature, a child’s accidents are usually short-lived things, short bursts of sunlight in the dark that fade almost instantly. It’s a rare breed of child, usually ones who live in the most desperate circumstances, where you see prolonged wandless magic before they reach Hogwarts age. “

 

His eyes flickered to Wizard Lenin’s, held his for a moment, something unspoken passing between them before Death turned back and continued, “I drew the short straw that day, no one ever likes having to deal with these things, as it usually involves erasing the memories of children… I think even the most hardened of aurors and thoughtless of wizards, deep down, can acknowledge that to casually erase memories like that is just as unforgivable as anything else. None of us liked doing it, only having the dull reassurance that one day they’d be at Hogwarts, and we wouldn’t have to do it anymore.

 

But it’s a simple sort of task, so it was me by myself as I headed to the suburbs just outside of London. By this time, I’d already started feeling tired, out of place among all of Wizarding Britain, and worn down by my overwhelming fame and notoriety. So, I decided to forgo my auror uniform, wearing a muggle suit, and took the bus rather than simply apparating.

 

I didn’t expect it to take more than an afternoon, honestly, and I was soaking in the suburbs as much as I could. The suburbs always having a… bitter sort of nostalgia for me.

 

However, it wasn’t a child I found at the end of things, but rather a young woman.”

 

Death paused, his hand instinctively squeezing Wizard Lenin’s hand, before continuing, “She could have been beautiful, but she had somehow made herself plain, or had been made into something plain. Her hair was too long, her skirts dark and unembellished, her sweaters too large for her frame, and a desperate look of timid uncertainty and longing etched permanently onto her features.

 

She sat by herself on the swings, staring out into nothing, watching as the sun drifted towards setting.

 

I sat next to her, looking at her, wondering if she was a Hogwarts student or something else, but what else could she be? She was far older than eleven, should have been a student with a wand beside her and the air of practiced magic, but she was raw and unrefined even at a glance, and more, so very uncertain, not the look of someone who had rejected their letter.

 

‘Are you an angel?’, she asked me, and god her voice was young and old in the same instant, a strange paradox of a girl’s voice who had seen too much.

 

‘I’m sorry?’ I asked, stiffening, because by this point I had already started stretching the limits of my humanity in terms of appearance and I knew it.

 

‘Are you an angel?’ she repeated, uncertainly, before saying, ‘You glow…’

 

‘I…’ I swallowed, remembering myself, and reaching out with a hand to her, ‘My name is Harry Potter, and I’m an auror, a wizard, but not an angel.’

 

‘A witch?’ the girl asked, and she wrung her hands, looking at me with wild eyes before something seemed to strike her, ‘There are others?’

 

‘Yes, many, did you not…’ I trailed off, because it was clear by her fearful expression that she had no idea.

 

‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,’ she said, eyes darting to mine then to the grass beneath her, ‘Mother already says that I am cursed for being a woman. She does not even know that I…’

 

‘It isn’t unnatural,’ I insisted, but from the bitter lift of her smile she didn’t believe me, but more, she didn’t care.

 

‘No, but it’s mine,’ she said, ‘It’s mine and… And I have power, over her, over everything, I don’t have to be afraid.’

 

‘Why would you have to be afraid?’

 

But I knew why, even if I didn’t want to believe it, that she was like me, like Tom Riddle had once been, as I knew others had been. She had grown up in a household that was anything but loving and magic, her late blooming beautiful magic, was her only defense and only life line.

 

I cleared my throat, remembering at once my duty, a duty I suddenly was rather anxious to not perform, ‘Did you receive a letter, when you were eleven, about a school in Scotland?’

 

She gave me a rather dubious look, ‘Should I have?’

 

‘When did you… discover, that you were a witch?’

 

She paused, paled, and a dark storm brewed itself in her eyes as she stared at me, ‘At school, I started bleeding, I thought I was going to die, and they threw tampons at me telling me to…’

 

Muggle borns are tricky business, they rarely divulge how the letters are sent and why to some muggle borns and not others, but the truth of the matter is that it comes down to accidental magic. If a muggle born child performs detectable, accidental, magic before the age of eleven the letter will arrive. If it’s later than this, then they stay in the muggle world, and in most cases, this is fine, more than enough.

 

But not in hers, not in every case, not in Carrie White’s.

 

She told me her name, told me about the upcoming dance at the gym and her date, a sweet rugby player who seemed to see her as more than Scary White, and how for once in her life everything seemed sweet and perfect and more than possible.

 

And she looked so happy, and in her shadow, I saw the young Harry Potter and what would have become of him had he not been taken from the Dursleys, I saw Tom Riddle staring balefully across at Albus Dumbledore, and I thought that I couldn’t take the memory of magic from her.

 

Damn the laws, I thought, she’ll remember it anyway at some point, I can’t steal her only protection, her only means of escape from her wretched existence until she could reach adulthood and leave her mother far behind.

 

God only knew how many times she’d been visited already, if she’d performed witchcraft after the age of eleven and her letter had already passed her by.

 

And I just couldn’t do it.

 

So, I went home, I filled out my paperwork and I lied, I set wards around the area so that no one would know, and I wished her good fortune and happiness even as she asked if she could meet me again, after the Prom…”

 

He trailed off, took a shuddering breath, and closed his eyes, not seeming to see the way that Wizard Lenin moved closer to him and stared with an intent softness, as if listening for whatever it was Death was saying beneath these words, “I had wanted so desperately for Voldemort to be wrong, he had to be wrong, everything I was and had been was defined by his inexcusable evil.

 

But, he had a point, the system of dealing with muggle born students, the statute of secrecy, it relied so heavily on memory manipulation and constant vigilance, it was never sustainable, and so many have suffered for it.

 

I would never meet her after her dance, never see her in her dress as it was then, pristine and perfect. I’d never see her smile up at me, a young boy on her arms, and unsullied happiness in her eyes.

 

They… They crowned her queen of the dance, they built up all her hopes and dreams, and then when she was standing there holding her red roses, dressed in white like a bride, they dropped a bucket of pig’s blood on her.

 

And she stood there, gagging on the metallic scent of it, tears gathering in her eyes as they… laughed at her.

 

And that power, that great power that had granted her some measure of happiness in her life, tore at them all. She killed everyone inside the school then made a great march of destruction through her town. Finally, she reached her mother, who had always warned her that the world was cruel and filled with evil, that they would betray her by the end of it.

 

And her mother stabbed Carrie White in the heart with a kitchen knife, Carrie using the last seconds of her life to bring her mother down with her, and I came across her then, and she looked me in the eye with certain, silent, knowledge that no one in the world had ever loved her.”

 

Lily found herself blinking, surprised to discover tears at the corner of her eyes even though she didn’t feel… “That wasn’t a very uplifting story.”

 

“No, but it made me realize that I could be wrong, desperately wrong, more that those fundamental black and white truths I’d so desperately adhered to could be wrong as well. And that was important…” he trailed off, wiped at her face and forced her to stare into his endless eyes, “And it reminded me, thinking back on it, that you and her are not so very different. You and I met at a crossroads, and just as I should have spent more time with her, come back for her and taken her to London or anywhere at all, I should have been there more for you.”

 

She found herself smiling almost against her will, “No, uncle Death, it’s fine you’ve been more than everything and…”

 

And her eyes drifted to Wizard Lenin, staring directly at Death as if he’d never seen him before, his face close to his, his lips almost grazing his Death’s jaw line and…

 

And she’d seen that look before, not here, not in person, but in black and white on a television screen, Casablanca as Humphrey Bogart looked into Ingrid Bergman’s eyes, “Here’s looking at you kid”, and Lily felt something cold and dark and solid settle in her stomach.

 

She stood, and with a wordless scream of rage flipped the table over, sending the tea cups and pot flying and the shattering onto the ground while Death and Wizard Lenin both leaned backwards.

 

And then to her great dismay she began to both laugh hysterically and sob at the same time, hunched over herself, and somehow even as her throat grew sore and her vision blurred she managed to say, “I don’t understand, I don’t understand any of this!”

 

She lifted her head, looked at them, spread her arms wide, “What is the point of… Of me, of this? Why do I even pretend and put on this show when no one cares and no one watches?! Why is… Why is everything changing?!”

 

“Lily!” Death cried, reaching out for her only for her to take a step back.

 

“No… No… I don’t…” she trailed off, uncertain how to finish that sentence, only knowing that the thought was choking, was tearing her apart from the inside.

 

“Are you finished?” Wizard Lenin asked, coolly, glaring at her without an ounce of pity or feeling in her expression.

 

“Oh, don’t you dare start with me,” Lily said, shaking her head and feeling that burning anger returning with ease.

 

“I’m not going to indulge your temper tantrums, Lily,” Wizard Lenin said, “Do grow up.”

 

“Then tell me, Lenin, what should I be doing?!” Lily asked, kicking the extra unused chair to the side, “What is one supposed to do if they can’t rage at existence?! Tell me, please, what am I supposed to do?”

 

“Be a rational human being for once in your life!”

 

“Rational? Are you being rational Lenin?” she pointed to Death, who now sat, one hand pressed against his forehead as if by not looking at either of them he could pretend they weren’t there, “All you think about, all you want, is him! You don’t care about your body or your revolution or anything anymore, just him!”

 

“That is none of your…”

 

“You live in my head! Of course, it’s my business!” Lily cut him off before he could even start.

 

But he just stood towering over her, his lips twisting into a sneer, as he stated so clearly in Hermione Granger’s words from earlier in the day, the words he hadn’t even thought to acknowledge, “The world does not revolve around you!”

 

She grabbed the fallen chair in her hands, bringing it forward with the full intention of striking him across the face, but before she could Death was standing between them.

 

She dropped the chair, breathing heavily, listening to it clatter against the ground, and suddenly felt exhaustion dripping through her. Death over his shoulder, shot Wizard Lenin another unimpressed and chiding glance, but then he turned towards Lily.

 

“Lily… I believe you’ve noticed but neither of us have explained,” Death paused, eyes flicking to Wizard Lenin and back, “But Lenin and I… We’ve started seeing each other,”

 

“…I don’t understand,” Lily said, they’d been seeing each other for years, hell, eyesight wasn’t that difficult of a task.

 

“No, I like him and he likes me… Do you understand?”

 

And then, well, Lily was not so obtuse as to miss what that meant, or fail to put the evidence together. More, looking over Death’s shoulder, she saw Wizard Lenin staring out into the distance, a light mortified blush on his cheeks, but he didn’t deny it either.

 

“Oh,” Lily breathed, sitting on the ground, ignoring the remains of the table and tea set, and after a moment of staring out into the distance herself she said softly, “I understand.”

 

* * *

 

Bargaining.

 

* * *

 

It wasn’t that Lily quite got a handle on everything, after leaving the train station, not immediately and not even a week after. She had to think, had to process, and suddenly Wizard Lenin was much more open about wanting to visit Death, to see him, to have alone time with him and…

 

Well, he at least gave her some space to process, for about two weeks, and then he started asking why they weren’t spending Sundays with Death anymore.

 

But Lily tried not to pay attention, having no great desire to visit Death, at least, not until distance had pushed them apart and back into something more familiar. Or, at least, that was the plan until it seemed like it wasn’t working at all, that it just somehow made Wizard Lenin want the man more.

 

Which left her sitting in Defense Against the Dark Arts, with a giant headache both from Wizard Lenin and Quirrell, trying to think of anything that Wizard Lenin might possibly want more than Death, and how he’d even come to want Death in the first place.

 

_“What about a body?”_ Lily asked, out of the blue as Squirrel stuttered out something about evil butterflies that could be stopped with the power of hand sanitizer, _“If I got you your body, would you trade that for him?”_

 

But Wizard Lenin wasn’t biting, just scoffed and said, _“If you could have gotten me a body you would have done it already.”_

 

Which, well, was true, but more than that was that he was not even remotely tempted by the idea, and if Lily had waved a body in front of him with the caveat of giving up on Death he probably wouldn’t have taken it.

 

_“What about… What about someone else? Someone here, that you can see every day… I’ll even help you, be proxy, if you need me to,”_ not that Lily had any idea who this person would be or what they could possibly be like to hold Wizard Lenin’s attention, but surely there must be someone who could match, or at least substitute…

 

_“I have no desire to enable pedophilia,_ ” Wizard Lenin remarked, a flash of some older grown man leering at Wizard Lenin wearing Lily’s eleven-year-old body.

 

_“So, it is about sex then,”_ Lily said, feeling as if she’d won something important in that, before faltering and asking, _“Wait, have you two had sex?”_

 

And Lily could practically see Wizard Lenin blocking off their connection and refusing to entertain her any longer. Which, well, just left her far too alone with her increasingly concerned thoughts.

 

So, she just watched as Squirrel twitched and sputtered, Ron Weasley sleeping in the back row, and tried to think of anything left that could tempt Wizard Lenin away. What did he love most in the world? Well, the body, but clearly that was no longer important. Schadenfreude, but even that didn’t seem to have an appeal these days…

 

No, the only thing that Wizard Lenin seemed to like at all at this point was Hogwarts itself.

 

Lily could laugh, really, what was it about this place that drew them both in like moths to the flame?

 

Yes, Hogwarts was the only thing left to bargain with, and it was a piece that Lily was more than willing to negotiate with.

 

_“Lily what are you…”_

Lily stood on top of her desk, watching as her peers turned their attention towards her, Quirrell twitching even more at the sight of her as his face paled, and calmly with steel in her voice she said to Wizard Lenin, _“If you persist in this attraction I will burn Hogwarts to the ground.”_

 

He balked for a moment, and then, blurted, _“That isn’t how feelings work!”_

 

She said nothing, not even as he continued, _“And believe me, I would know, if I could have gotten rid of it weeks ago I would have! Having feelings is, frankly, morbidly embarrassing for us all.”_

_“Then do it,”_ Lily commanded but she could almost see his internal sneer.

 

_“No, and now, I wouldn’t even if I could,”_ that cruel smirk just grew more pronounced inside of her head, _“Besides, you’re bluffing, you don’t have the guts to throw it all away, Lily.”_

 

So, that was how they were going to play it.

 

Lily addressed the classroom this time, ignoring the way they flinched at the sound of her voice, “Friends and comrades, I’ve decided I am going to burn Hogwarts to the ground until not even a lone textbook remains.”

 

Cue the startled panic, Neville looking at her in desperation, Hermione Granger in fear, everyone scurrying back in forth, and Squirrel standing curiously still, his eyes locked on hers, burning, but a smirk in his eyes as well.

 

Because he was also so very certain that Lily was bluffing.

 

“Ellie, sit down, don’t say things you don’t mean!” Hermione insisted, her face red and eyes wide, “Stop making a scene.”

 

But Lily didn’t sit down, instead she felt the rage overflowing again and she found herself laughing at this place, so certain that they were so important, “Why shouldn’t I do it? There’s no point to this place, none that I can see, not in eleven years of searching for it! Why shouldn’t I stop playing this pointless game that you’ve all forced me into? I did it with the Dursleys, for ten years I did it with them, and I won’t do it here for seven more. Not when I can’t see the reason behind it.”

 

And even as she spoke Wizard Lenin whispered in her inner ear, _“Oh, you talk big, but you’re not going to do it. There are too many consequences. They’ll snap your wand, they will expel you, they may even send you to Azkaban. You will have done more than murder or rape, you will have destroyed an integral piece of wizarding culture, and they will never forgive you for it.”_

_“I have no interest in British wizards and I never will,”_ Lily said as she surveyed the scene around her, _“If we are done with this farce then let’s be done with this farce. Let Eleanor Lily Potter die a fiery, glorious, death here and now.”_

 

And it would be more glorious, more meaningful, than anything these people ever could have offered their messiah.

 

_“Then go ahead, Lily,”_ Wizard Lenin whispered, _“I dare you.”_

 

And without a word or a moment of hesitation Hogwarts burst into flames, Lily, standing with arms raised at the very heart of it.

 

(Eleanor Lily Potter, eleven-year-old girl who lived and destroyer of Hogwarts, offered no defense in her trial before the Wizengamot, and was shortly sentenced to life imprisonment in Azkaban.)

 

* * *

 

Depression.

 

* * *

 

She sat curled in on herself, the dark stones of her prison cold against her bare feet, Rabbit curled in her lap, the dementors hovering somewhere outside of her cell, always warily darting beyond her cell as if they alone could see her for what she truly was.

 

Inside her head Wizard Lenin had been raging for hours, still insisted on screaming, about how he couldn’t believe she had done this, and was she a great fool, and that Eleanor Lily Potter was now essentially dead and that she had lost them every advantage they’d ever had…

 

She barely heard him though, because beneath all this were images of Death, and the certainty that things would never go back to the way they had been.

 

If she closed her eyes, blocked out the noise and the chill and the hopelessness she could see them, as they had been years ago, the three of them and a white rabbit, Wizard Lenin and Death bickering with each other, only just keeping from tearing each other to pieces, and Lily sitting between the two of them exasperated at it all but she was smiling.

 

In that vision inside of her head there was a great golden light scattered about them all, the light of fond nostalgia, of happy memory of days long since passed by.

 

And now, in this cell, there was the stark promise that Lily’s life had been utterly without meaning and that nothing she could have done could ever prescribe it meaning. More, this light, this golden light that burned for Wizard Lenin and Death, the light they found in each other, would forever be beyond Lily’s reach.

 

She could chase after it, after the memories of it, after what she thought it could be for her, but her fingertips would never quite reach it. Lily would never have a meaningful connection in her life.

 

She pictured life without them, with them moving past her and beyond her into each other’s arms, she imagined life without anything at all (for they were all that had ever mattered in her short existence), and the world seemed stark, bitter, and so very empty.

 

And Lily was already so very tired.

 

Lily briefly wondered then, curled on herself over a rabbit she hadn’t dared let them take from her, if she too would be endless and meaningless, forever persisting without any true exit, and if she shouldn’t just stay in this cell forever because nothing else would ever be worth more or less than this place.

 

After all, anywhere else would ultimately be the same as a prison cell on this wretched island.

 

_“Lily,”_

 

Lily lifted her head, the voice ringing in her ears, curiously soft after all the screaming, and so very tender for his voice, a voice she had never heard any tenderness in at all.

 

_“I know the point of my existence,”_ Wizard Lenin said, still so very softly.

 

_“There’s no point to anyone’s existence,”_ Lily retorted, curling in on herself tighter, wishing she could just block him out again.

 

_“That’s not true,”_ and there was such confidence in his voice as he said it, even as he continued, _“I’ve learned that the only point of my existence, out of everything I’ve strived for and accomplished, everything I’ve failed to do, the only meaningful thing I’ve ever possessed is love.”_

 

_“Love?!”_ Lily actually barked out a laugh at that, this from Wizard Lenin, a man who thought friendship was for the weak and sentimental.

 

_“Love for the personification of Death,”_ he insisted, _“Everything else is transitory, fleeting, empty, material, and pointless. Love, alone, is the reason I exist.”_

 

_“Do you even hear yourself talk?”_ Lily asked bitterly, but for once he didn’t seem to mind.

 

_“If I’d had my way, my revolution, my immortality… I imagine that one day I would have realized how pointless it really is. That the fear, adoration, and hatred of the masses is worth little more than their indifference,”_ Wizard Lenin said before adding with a wry tone to his voice, _“So, yes, believe it or not, I hear myself talk.”_

 

Well, she had absolutely nothing to say to that, because she’d wanted him at least to understand, to know what it felt like, because Hogwarts had belonged to him more than it had to her…

 

_“Perhaps, Lily, you exist for much the same reason,”_ he said, only a brief pause afterwards, and flashes of memories coursing through her, of the three of them in the golden light, _“You exist for Death and for me, perhaps you even exist for that abominable rabbit. And if Death can find a reason to reconnect with life after seeing his universe destroy itself, after witnessing humanity at its best and most wretched, then who is to say, that a thousand or ten thousand years from now, you cannot.”_

 

And then that first memory of Lily meeting Lenin inside of her mind, her smile almost blinding him, so without fear or guile, _“And if I, a sociopath incapable of sentiment or anything other than rage and hatred, can feel this way about him and about you, surely there is hope for you yet.”_

 

And Lily could see it, herself between them, and a thousand years from now, perhaps even at the universe’s very end, that golden light enshrouding her.

 

Lily stood, Rabbit placed back on her head, and a bright grin on her face that countered all that Azkaban stood for, and without a word she stepped out of her cell and into the future, the road before her endless and so very bright.

 

* * *

 

Acceptance

 

* * *

 

September 2140, the colonization vessel Prometheus, on a Sunday.

 

A thin woman with strangely pale skin, hair with the color and vibrancy of a deep sunset, endless green eyes, in worn and faded clothing unfit for a space voyage, sat out of the hyper sleep chambers and stared at a glossy printed photo held loosely between pale thin fingers.

 

The other colonists were deep in hyper sleep, not scheduled to wake for another ten years, as she herself should have not been scheduled to wake for another ten years.

 

“Excuse me, Miss…”

 

The woman looked up at him and her eyes seemed to burn through him entirely, as if in a mere glance alone she had seen through the very core of his mechanical and artificial soul. Human eyes, his programming distantly informed him, did not come in that color.

 

The photograph, displayed the woman, she sat in a darkened room of what looked to be a bar, an absurdly good looking pale haired young man (artificially good looking, to the point where he would be an android if not for the fact that David cannot recognize that particular make and model) to her right, and seated just behind her, two dark haired men, also attractive, one sharing her alien eyes and features, and the other with pale burning eyes that could be mistaken as the inspiration for David’s. 

 

She smiled at him, motioned for him to join her sitting on the floor, “I’ve been wondering when we’d get a chance to talk to each other, David. Tell me, how have you enjoyed existence thus far?”

 

“Miss, you should not be out of the hyper sleep chambers, I will escort…”

 

“Oh,” the woman said, “That’s not any fun, besides, I’d just go into cardiac arrest and it’d be very messy. And it’s Lily,”

 

“I’m afraid we must try, Lily,” he insisted, with the right amount of charm, but if anything, she just seemed vaguely amused by this.

 

“Well, if you insist, but beforehand why don’t we sit here and talk. My uncle was always very fond of you,” she pulled him down to join her, her hands warm, and with a curious amount of strength for a human woman.

 

“Your uncle?”

 

“You met him another world, I’m afraid… It also didn’t end very well for anyone involved,” Lily said, “Or at least, from what he told me.”

 

“Is that so?” he asked, humoring her more than anything, but she nodded as if he was being perfectly frank.

 

“Yes, I’d hoped that we could become friends, I have so very few friends…” she trailed off, regarding him, then said, “You know, there is a point to everything, it’s not easy to discover, but it’s there… Perhaps, perhaps the point is the pointlessness, so even when you’re disappointed and so very bitter above all else you will have a friend, meaning, in me.”

 

“I’m afraid I don’t understand, Lily.”

 

She blinked, smiled, a disarming and almost unnatural grin, “Good, then you haven’t hit rock bottom yet, but just remember that when you do. I suppose it’s time to watch my death and miraculous resurrection then.”

 

She stood, grabbed his arm, and they walked, arm in arm, back into the hyper sleep chambers, and despite himself he wondered what she would be like after she woke, because surely, this attitude, this strange charming and disarming inhumanity to her, was something brought on by waking out of cycle.

**Author's Note:**

> I was given a bet/challenge of sorts because I did not think Death/Lenin was possible. But dammit, this is one of the best things I've ever written.
> 
> Thanks for reading, comments, kudos, and bookmarks are greatly appreciated.


End file.
